My story at Smart Aviation started in March 2021, at the peak of the pandemic. I signed up for a full-time 0 - ATPL program and from the very first day there I couldn’t be happier with the experience I was living, as I encountered a modern new fleet equipped with a glass cockpit, operating entirely from Poznan International Airport in the middle of A320’s, 737’s and other gems - that’s a combination you most probably won’t find anywhere else in Europe. Given the fact that it’s a modular course, every single stage had to be done separately and in a certain order, starting from PPL which I managed to finish in less than 3 months from the moment I put my feet in the school for the first time.
Once I received my PPL license (end of May 2021), I started doing my time building while preparing in parallel for the ATPL exams. In December I took a 2-week refresher course with KSA100 and continued my preparation for the freshly updated ECQB 2021+, having started my exams in March 2022. Up until this point I was really happy with the training and had zero issues with the school or someone from the school. In May 2022, 1 week before attending my last 3 ATPL exams, I decided to sign up for the May ME/IR/CPL class, just to make sure I would continue my training right after I finished my ATPLs. To my surprise, I found myself inserted in a class with another 12 people, way above the school's capacity and recommended by the instructors as I later found out when talking with some of them, especially when there were already students delayed from previous sessions.
Once my ATPLs were done in mid-May (as well as a free unauthorized advertisement of my success), I jumped straight away to the ME and began my practical training while combining it with the last time building hours I had to do for the minimum license issue requirements. To get an airplane for TB at this point was already a nightmare as the school was getting more students than ever and some airplanes were down for an undetermined period, apart from the fact that the instructors have priority bookings and the maintenance wasn’t being planned in advance. If it wasn’t for the good and healthy relationship I had with some instructors I would probably still be trying to find slots to finish my TB.
On 20ish of June, I had my first sim sessions scheduled, having done ME + BIFM + 1 SE CPL flight so far. These were very well scheduled by the responsible instructor and I had all my sim sessions completed by July 3rd, 15 days before my scheduled final exam (booked 3 weeks before).
The real struggle began with finding an IR instructor - not only you’re responsible for finding it yourself by contacting every single one of them individually (I contacted 5 or 6), but also I ended up finding there were no instructors available either because they had their normal job or they were already filled with students with long waitlists. With the suggestion of the guys from the office, I contacted the head of training who promptly offered to be my IR instructor. Our first two flights were OK and about 10 days before my skill test I had about 3h of IR left to do and my CPL ME which was already scheduled with another instructor. To not lose the proficiency in flying IR, I asked the head of training to schedule our last flight a couple of days before my ST to which he agreed. In the week before my ST, I was in constant contact with the instructor who knew about my ST date and I was promised (I have it in writing on WhatsApp) that we would fly
3 days before my ST, on Thursday (my ST was scheduled on Monday).
When Thursday came,
3 days before my ST, I receive a message from the head of training stating that he wouldn’t be able to fly with me, without any apparent reason, while having another student from June class without any exam pressure, scheduled 4 days during that week with slots of up to 10h each. When confronted with that and asked to put me in the place of that student (I was so desperate that I was already BEGGING to be scheduled), he started to find BS excuses on why not and why I should find another instructor while behaving like an immature child (sending “don’t care” emojis and so on), when he knew precisely about my situation and the instructors (un)availability at this point. As per his request, I contacted two other instructors stating that my main instructor didn’t care about me and BEGGING once again to get a slot with them, to which I got a negative answer as expected. Not knowing what to do at that point, I contacted the guys from the office who promptly got onto the problem and did their best to help me find a solution. Surprise surprise, 10 minutes after I sent that message to other instructors, one of them forwarded it to the head of training and I was already being threatened by him “to be very careful when sending this type of messages” - just imagine, being threatened by the head of training and the owner of the school after paying tens of thousands of € for telling the truth. It escalated even further when the office got an order from the head of training to cancel my ST for personal reasons. Of course, I couldn’t leave it that way so I decided to travel to the school to have a face-to-face chat. In the middle of my trip, I get a message from the HoT saying that he put me in the place of the other student scheduled previously on Saturday and the plan for that flight. Now my question is, was it that hard to do it from the very beginning without this circus? Was it necessary to ruin my entire day just to end up getting where we should have been at the very start? It just doesn’t come to my mind how after so many positive moments that I lived during my training, it would end up this way.
Of course, surprises never come isolated, so the following day, on Friday, I got a message from the instructor who forwarded THAT message to HoT, saying that he had a
2h slot for me if I could be at the airport in 1 hour. Assuming that my main instructor just convinced this one to fly with me so that he would spend less time with me on Saturday, I didn’t think twice and made that flight. Saturday came and I was at the airport to prepare for my flight
1h15 before the starting time of my slot. Having everything prepared and already passed the start hour of my slot, there was no instructor and no message, warning me that he would be late. It was about
1h30 after my slot was supposed to start when he appeared (if you ever fly with him just get used to waiting a lot, sometimes even hours without any notice). When I reminded him that we only had 1.5h left to do as I did 2h with the other instructor the previous day, he got pissed stating that he doesn’t fly with students of other instructors (although we already had 2 flights done together) and that I couldn’t have flown with the other instructor - that just shows how good is the communication between instructors on subjects that matter, i.e., training. All in all, we made this last flight and my ME/IR/CPL training was finished in 11 weeks (unlike the promised 8) with a lot of pressing on the school.
Since the beginning of 2022, I started hearing many complaints from fellow student colleagues, either because they were not getting what they were promised by the main salesman (with whom you have your first contact) or a particular set of problems that happened with me. The last weeks there showed me how toxic is the environment I heard a lot about, as there is no management, planning or good communication inside the school. Smart Aviation used to be much better until the beginning of 2022. As soon as the inflow of students increased, no limits for the intake were established and the quality of training started to decrease rapidly. It’s a handful of really good instructors and the guys from the office who maintain the school afloat.
The price that I paid for the training was within the expected and told before signing the contract, although not all the prices were respected - I was overcharged 500€ for the ATPL theory and about 50€ (there were no changes in the AIP as well) in landing fees without any previous notice of course. Plus, the prices given to Polish nationals were way lower than the ones given to the foreign students, 5 - 7k€ lower for the entire program (milking foreigners is not that uncommon in Poland).
On a personal note, I’m not sure I’m ready to recommend this school at this point, even though I used to do it quite a lot, having brought at least 5 new students without anything in exchange. If you still decide to sign up, be aware that you will be doing it at your own risk and take all the golden promises that will be made to you before you start your training with a big pinch of salt, the size of a Mount Everest.
NK